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Advertising…what works for you?
I’ve spent the best part of my life selling advertising and it’s a neccessary evil. If I could count the times I’ve told someone to monitor their advertising to see how well it works I’d be a rich man……………..but you’ve guessed it, I’ve been so damn busy learning and working and quoting and printing I’ve little clue how well my ads have worked in this my first full year.
Here’s where I’ve spent my dosh and what I think they’ve pulled in:
Yellow Pages 1/8th page under T-shirts which has pulled in some business which has ultimately led to more contacts. Booked again this coming year.
Yellow Pages 1/8th page under Banners….purely and simply because I felt a Banner would be easy enough to produce in limited space and I’ve sold them before………..BUT………I can count the orders I’ve had on the fingers of one foot. About £800 worth of business.
Now I’m thinking of changing the Banner ad to a Signs ad to widen the appeal but then I’ll be in a section with all the half page boys and I really need to know if it’s worth doing. Ok it’s only a couple of hundred quid but as I have a couple of start up businesses I’m running alongside(web based which I have to promote) I can’t afford to waste a penny on something that won’t work!
I don’t have too much trouble promoting the T-shirt side of my business but the Signs side needs a bit of a push……..any suggestions? And what about Yellow Pages…….does it do it for you? (?)
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8 Replies
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The answer is in your own post mate, ask yourself Martin Why are there so many big adds in sign makers section if they didn’t work they wouldn’t be there. Banners as you have discovered is a loser and in my experience so is the Thomson local. I don’t know much about the web as I am still developing that side of my business, id be interested to know how you promote your site and what works best for you.
When I started out I placed an add bigger than I could afford 1/4 page it gave me the start I needed 2 to 3 enquiries a day nowa days its mostly referrals from existing customers but I still have a good presence in our local book but im a bit more selective on what leads I follow up. I can’t guarantee that it would work for every body as I am lucky enough to be in a large yellow page catchment area very commercial with one of the biggest distribution figures in the UK and consequently one of the most expensive books.
Good luck Neil…..
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Cheers Neil,
I actually sold Yellow Pages for a while and if only it were that simple! Many people renew there YP advertising because they are fearful that they’ll lose out to their competitors if their not in the book. Few, if any, have a suitable system in place for monitoring the response. For many it’s the only advertising they do. However, your experience seems like a good one and if I can get a couple of decent enquiries a week I’ll be more than happy 😀 😀
As for the web. I have a boxing site and forum at http://www.warriorboxing.com and sell a mixture of products including printed ‘Slogan T’s, which is how I got into T-shirt printing and signs in the first place. The Boxing market is difficult to reach as the target audience is widely spread and the people who buy most of my gear are not always active boxers. I advertise in Boxing news etc., but for web based leads have mixed experiences paying out for E-spotting and the like.
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Martin. I advertise in YP, local and Bus Pages, Central London. Each one gives us a fair crack of the whip. We have just re-located to a town where there isn’t really a prominent sign company in the area. we have only been there 3 months and the calls through YP are very encouraging.
I don’t really put in a big ad and I only really like having it for a local presence, but luckily it seems to be working well with this town we are in.
BP has actually produced some good work for us. You find that you may not get as many calls but the calls you do get are a better quality, better business to business enquiries who don’t mind paying a bit more
But most of our work, like Neil’s comes through referal’s. I think they are the most satisfiing as you then know you have provided a good sign for the company that has recommended you.
word of mouth – awareness – phone calls – customers.
Good Luck 😛
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we don’t advertize at all, we do however employ a full time sales person, it was a major expense for the first 6 months as she had no idea of signage but it’s really starting to pay off for us now as we are getting into some major blue chip companies, all our other work come directly from word of mouth and recomendations.
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Being in a rural part of the country,ie we can be surrounded by fields or morrland within 5 mins walking, using YP is vital. It generally brings in 4-5 enquiries per week.
Another excellent way for us is to use the local parish magazines. Our local one costs only £10 for a full A5 page and is a great way to attract the local Farmhouse B&B’s and smaller businesses. Yes it is nice to get a big job from a big company but in cornwall 95% of ALL businesses are either small or self employed, and the majority live in local parishes. Money well spent 😀 😀 -
My advice is to put in as much graft as possible doing your own cold calling at first, your keeness should sell your business itself. Work by word of mouth and referalls will soon follow and hey presto! you’ll be beating them away with a stick! 😛 😛
Cheers
Danny -
we just advertise in the yp`s. (signs, tee shirt printing, embroidery & promotional items) costs approx £2k. well worth it.
got a call from the local rag the other day, asked if I was intrested in placing an ad in a feature they were doing. 3″ x 4″. it would be in 1 weekday night and the sunday version. £190 + VAT. I told him it was too exspensive, and he told me I`d be sorry i missed out. When the ad appeared there were only 2 takers. Boy i was really sorry i missed out.
we also get calls from people putting together a diary/year planner in aid of a charity.( we must get 5 calls aday) It sounds a little mean, but we tell these people where to go. they take up valuable work time and you will not get work back from these ads. Plus the charitys don`t benifit much.
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My own experiences with yellow pages are that possible customers phone the large adverts to get prices and phone the smaller ones to have work done…we have monitored YP over the last few years and when we had a lge AD we had a lot of enquiries..running around surveying quoting chasing etc etc…when we had a small AD we got less calls but got every job…I haven’t been able to work this out…But this year we have dropped yellow pages and are trying a company that supplies information on relocating/new business’s to see if direct marketing is a better form of attack… one of the reason’s for this is the increasing number of sign co in the YP….After saying all this most of our work is repeat business & ‘Word of Mouth’…to which I think is the best sales tool of all.
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